Talk:Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shii (talk · contribs) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for taking this on. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy reply, I do have a second round of comments that is not line-by-line and I'll have to write it up in more detail soon. Shii (tock) 08:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

The work is based on a longer lecture series

• And... ???? Isn't it somewhat important to describe in detail what these lectures were and what subjects they touched on? Surely there must be an article or book somewhere in Inklings studies that gives us more context for the production of the essay and Tolkien's inspiration. Please find a little bit of this to balance out the mass of primary source summary. Shii (tock) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The sentence was misleading, thank you. The work/essay was edited down from the lecture series, which wasn't about a set of other subjects. Detail of Drout's book on the 2 manuscripts and citations added.

Earlier critics wrong

• IMHO this is a newspaper headline, not an encyclopedia headline. Shii (tock) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Reworded.

He argues that heroic human stories had been held as superior to myth; he disagrees, writing "For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected." He states directly "We do not deny the worth of the hero by accepting Grendel and the dragon."

• Several problems with this. The first sentence makes it sound like Tolkien is disagreeing with himself: "He argues X... he disagrees, writing not-X". The second sentence makes the structure of the paragraph overly repetitive: "He [says X], he [says Y], he [says Z]". Shii (tock) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Reworded; split into two sentences.

Scholars heading

• I was not very impressed with this section in general, as it seemed to leave out what specific later work built upon Tolkien. Shii (tock) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

There is a very large corpus of Beowulf criticism since 1936, and much of it cites Tolkien, as the quotations demonstrate. What we can write here (but probably not in the article) is that Tolkien is pervasive through later critical evaluation, interpretation and commentary on Beowulf, and even (perhaps especially) when he is not mentioned, as his thinking has become the shared, assumed, sometimes unstated cultural background for the whole discourse. That is to say, the influence of the paper is enormous, as the statement about John. D. Niles (below) makes clear. I have added Roy Liuzza's summary of the key influence that Tolkien had through this essay, which perhaps further stresses the key point: that as Drout says (quote in the article) the essay was in a way influential precisely because it was not minutely scholarly and analytic like most of his work, but broad and sweeping. I suggest, therefore, that one would search in vain for specific later things built on this or that phrase or triumph of linguistic exegesis. What Tolkien did in the essay was to change the whole way that all later scholars looked at the poem, whether they agreed with any particular claim of his—or more likely did not. Everyone accepts that Beowulf is important as great poetry, monsters and all. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:31, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

For example, John D. Niles observed that "Bypassing earlier scholarship, critics of the past fifty years have generally traced the current era of Beowulf studies back to 1936" [and Tolkien's essay]".

• There is no need for "For example" in this sentence, and it seems to have several endings. Suggest the brackets be removed as well as extraneous quotation marks. Shii (tock) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Removed "For example", and reworded the end of the sentence.

Press heading

• What was the occasion of these recent articles in the press? Should this be considered a representative summary of all press coverage, or did some recent event spur several journalists to return to the essay? Shii (tock) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The articles reflect continuing interest in Tolkien's work (at a guess, recently released films), but there's no reason to suppose the views are other than a fair sample of press coverage.

Translator heading

• While it is noteworthy that Tolkien had an effect on a famous Beowulf translation, I am not convinced that we need such a long quotation. Shii (tock) 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Shortened and paraphrased. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: I've gone through the article and made a few small changes myself. Is there anything in particular you'd like to add about Tolkien's own Beowulf translation?

Not really, though it's an interesting sidelight on what he thought. A few lines are cited in "On Translating Beowulf"; I guess (but this is WP:OR) that we can see he was not satisfied, finding it impossible to keep to the rules he laid down in that essay. I quote from that WP article: "In the case of compound words, Tolkien observes that the translator has to 'hesitate between simply naming the thing denoted (so 'harp' 1065, for gomen-wudu 'play-wood'), and resolving the combination into a phrase. The former method retains the compactness of the original but loses its colour; the latter retains the colour, but even if it does not falsify or exaggerate it, it loosens and weakens the texture. Choice between the evils will vary with occasions.'" Presumably reasons of that sort led him to abandon the effort, but were not enough to dissuade Christopher T. from publishing the work posthumously. But we can't say that in the article.

Also, are there any critical essays that could be considered a response to this one; has it been cited in academic publications, not simply as a notable essay, but as a set of claims that need to be responded to? Shii (tock) 23:18, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The essay is as I've said distinctly vague and sweeping, unlike the rest of his philological work. He mentions issues only in passing. As Drout mentions (ref 1 in the article): "It is thus difficult to determine whether Tolkien should be credited with specific technical contributions to Beowulf study. 'Beowulf:The Monsters and the Critics' only briefly touches on the most controversial contemporary topic in Beowulf scholarship—the date of the poem—and Tolkien asserts without explanation his conclusion that the poem dates from the 'age of Bede' (ca. 670–735). His assertion in the appendix of 'Beowulf:The Monsters and the Critics' that lines 181–88 of Beowulf are likely an expansion or reworking of an earlier, shorter version of the passage by an interpolator is credited to his 'ear and judgment' and given only a brief explanation." So to answer your question, the answer is I think both yes and no: there are large themes in there, but scholars largely argued amongst themselves, inspired by Tolkien's general suggestions. Thus Drout in the passage just quoted very nearly dismisses Tolkien's contribution to the dating issue (as pure opinion), but states correctly that the issue is massive. This seems to be typical of the relationship of the essay to later scholarship. Hence I believe that the tone and structure of the article - that the essay is important but non-specific on scholarship - is correct. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:44, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your courteous replies, even when I basically asked the same question twice. Having reread everything, I think this is in good shape and I've approved the article for GA. Now, off to read Tolkien's translation for myself... Shii (tock) 19:58, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the review, and for ensuring I'd thought things through! Hope you enjoy the T. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)